Mar10

forwarded by: gen.rail@concordia.ca facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=381860521973 –Please forward widely– Dear colleagues: I received an urgent message from Lisa Montgomery (associated to the Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal) and have basically pasted info from it in the paragraphs and sentences that follow. The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal is in need of our help. They need a physical presence at a women’s policy meeting with Michael Ignatieff scheduled this coming Sunday to support the shelter as they present a brief and look for political support from members of parliament. As you may know, in celebration of International Women’s week Mr. Harper et al. have just cut funding to the Aboriginal Healing Program. This program is to deal with residential school fall out (intergenerational effects of psychological, addiction, physical abuse). The Native Women’s Shelter of Montreal will see a catastrophic reduction in funding due to this cut. This will result in the removal of aboriginal cultural programming on health and healing, not to mention that the positions being cut are occupied by aboriginal women themselves. This move contradicts the thrown speech not to mention all of the Conservatives boasting vis-a-vis aboriginals, employment and womens’ issues. In collaboration with the shelter and 145 other aboriginal organizations that will be effected, Lisa is presently working on a brief and communication plan dealing with the effects of the cuts. The Native Women’s Shelter (NWSM) provides a safe environment where women can begin to rebuild their lives. They offer support and frontline services to Aboriginal women and children to promote their empowerment and independence. The NWSM is the only women’s shelter in Montreal that provides services exclusively to Aboriginal and Inuit women and their children. The NMSM can accommodate up to 16 women and children per night. Lisa mentions that it is crucial that we rally in order to take advantage of the leader of the opposition being in Montreal. We need this being spoken about in parliament as the cuts take hold as of March 31, 2010. It may merely be two hours of your time but the visual of great numbers of women [and men] coming out in support of this will hopefully ensure that this issue gets spoken about. Please confirm your attendance by sending a quick note to Lisa Thanks in advance for your support! Date: Sunday, March 14, 2010 Time: 1:30 PM to 2:30 PM Location: Centre Lajeunesse (7378 Lajeunesse street next to metro Jean-Talon) **************************************** Geneviève Rail, Ph.D. Directrice, Institut Simone de Beauvoir / Principal, Simone de Beauvoir Institute Université Concordia / Concordia University 1455 De Maisonneuve Ouest / West Montréal, Québec CANADA, H3G 1M8 T: 514.848.2424 x 2372...